In a recent message to the list, Bill Hartmann mentioned several
results suggesting that pitch perception is sometimes inconsistent
with the spectral components' organization.
In a similar vein, Demany, Semal and Carlyon (JASA 1991, 90, 3019)
suggest that, for dyads of completely resolved components, the
detection of inharmonicity is not based on the same neural information
as the detection of pitch changes.
However, it seems to me that there is a logical problem in this debate
about the status of pitch in auditory organization: Saying that pitch
is a consequence of organization rather than a cause looks like
a truism. The fact that a mistuned harmonic contributes to the virtual
pitch of a complex indicates in itself that the harmonic is integrated
into the complex. This integration may occur even though, at the same
time, the harmonic pops out as a separate entity: Al Bregman showed
that duplex perception is a quite general phenomenon.
Laurent Demany